Last week ESPN addressed that there are many different safety helmets on the market and these protect the head in very different ways. It is true that a military helmet for example needs to stop bullets whereas a ski helmet is meant to protect the wearer from injury in a crash.
However, in this insightful piece ESPN noted, “(motorsport) racing helmets are designed to redistribute the force of an accident, skiing helmets are designed to prevent skull fractures, and have not been designed with potential brain injuries in mind.”
The article also added, “Brain injuries are not restricted to Formula One, yet the FIA is the governing body that has done the most research on how to reduce the impact of high-impact head injuries on its competitors.”
With this in mind, perhaps it is time that the governing bodies for various sports start to consider the research that other bodies are doing. Thus football – which has only in recent years started to take head injuries seriously – could learn something from motorsport as well as winter sport helmets and so on.
These should all do the same thing at the end of the day, and that is to protect the wearer.